Feminism Hugely Digressed

Pukiusap by Liv Strömquist
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pukiusap is the Filipino translation of Liv Strömquist's Fruit of Knowledge. The first edition cover contains a woman in ice skates with a blood stain in her panties. That created a buzz in bookstores way back 2018. I only have the second print, showing the woman on the upper-right side of the cover (no more of that stain). Still, the font of Pukiusap filled the whole cover and should be easily seen, but for some reason, the bookstores have hidden those copies behind the cashier, or only releases them upon buyer's request.

I applaud the Pride Press and the Anvil Publishing to invite Bebang as the translator because she has established the Filipina voice about the female reproductive organ and the culture around womanhood. She has forged her way through her collection of essays titled It's a Mens world that detailed her personal experiences of her younger years and of her coming of age. Perhaps because I know her from her own works (and through our interactions in the Pinoy Reads Pinoy Books bookclub), she has assimilated herself in Liv's art. And it was nice really! It feels like a friend is talking to you. I even imagine her tones in reading some of the comic strips. What separates her voice from Liv's is the repetition style that the latter intended in her panels. Liv's narrative bar has that one statement, and yet a character has a speech balloon repeats that same statement, and that irks me at times. Maybe she made it as an agency to male readers, or to those youngsters, or some netizens who has slower reading comprehension skills.

I liked the art, very economical. Most of the panels are made in black and white, but Liv made some important points to be filled with color. It gave variety and somehow a palette-cleanser. Somewhere, some panels are really taxing to read maybe because it was filled with too much text (and APA citations) and some are panels with repetitive snapshot with the same positioning of speech balloons, a deliberate copy pasta paneling for me.

I guess in the end, this feminist novel gave me more insights on how fucked up our culture, religion, and studies are because it was centered around men and authored by men.

Sa ka(lala)k(i)han Ito na lang masasabi ko:

MGA PAKSHET KAYONG LAHAT!!!

(Assunta Da Rossi, Jologs 2002)

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